


Two Years Later: B Side

by itspixiesthings



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Ending, Character Study, Fix-It, Gen, PTSD, Therapy, Trauma Recovery, spoiler warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28060164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itspixiesthings/pseuds/itspixiesthings
Summary: Two years after the trial of Esplin 9466, a full three years after the end of the war, all of the Animorphs have gone their separate ways. They have all been through a lot, and are all grieving in their own ways, with different coping strategies. How they recover and heal from there on is shaky, but slowly they manage to mend themselves and each other. These are their epilogues.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	1. Tobias

**Author's Note:**

> This is, essentially, a fix-it fic alternate ending. It doesn't retcon anything before the second time jump, but after that it gives what is, to me, a more satisfying conclusion to each of their stories, and gets all of these kids some damn therapy.

<From the water that gave birth to us.> I dipped my hoof in the stream of running water in front of me, feeling the cool trickle of it splash for a moment up my fur before I pulled it back out again, setting it gently on the grass.  
  
<From the grass that feeds us.> I crushed a patch of the grass with that same hoof, and could feel the nutrients absorb. I savoured the way it passed up through the base of my hoof, strengthening my body.

<For the freedom that unites us.> I spread my arms wide, splaying out my fingers. <We look to the stars> I gazed up at the sunrise, the way the colours painted the horizon in patterns that you would never see on Earth. <Freedom is my only cause, duty to my people my only guide.> I finished the ritual, which would have been longer and had more sentences if I were still what you could consider 'military personnel'.  
  
But I wasn't. Not anymore.  
  
No, Tobias the _nothlit_ was just a civilian now.

As I finished the morning ritual, I closed my eyes, and felt the changes come over me. My hooves began to split into three prongs, slowly elongating to form talons. My hands, each with seven fingers, slowly merged together, and for a few moments as my arms shrank I just had these strange, blue stumps of flesh. But then the fur changed colour, and a feather pattern emerged from it, before that pattern became 3D and feathers sprouted from my arms, which were quickly broadening into wings.  
  
My face split open. That's probably the weirdest part of going from Andalite morph back to hawk. For a few grisly seconds, my face was split apart but I still had no mouth, so there wasn't anything inside the giant hole except for bones and muscles. Garish to observe, I'm sure, but the digestive track soon followed, connecting the face-hole to my stomach. The edges hardened, then elongated, and sharpened. Soon I was sporting a beak.  
  
I was a hawk again.  
  
Hawk is my natural body. Has been for some time. I'm at peace with that, now. I struggled with it at first, with loosing my human body. And then, for a while after that, I struggled with the fact that I didn't mind loosing my human body as much as I felt I should. That I liked being a hawk. But, well, so much has happened now that that whole quandary feels less important. Or, like it should anyways.  
  
It's been three years since we won the war.

Three years since Rachel died.

Listen, I'm not an idiot. I know what depression is. I know what disassociation is. I know that when I retreat into the hawk's mind, that peaceful instinctual mind that doesn't understand concepts like grief or guilt, that what I'm doing is running away. I know it's not healthy. But it's kind of an unprecedented situation isn't it? I can't exactly say to a therapist “yeah so my unhealthy coping mechanism is sinking into the mind of a hawk so I cant feel the pain, but it's disconnecting me from my sense of self as a human being, any advice?”  
  
I almost let myself do it, too. Would have. It was so tempting to just fly off into the horizon, as far as I could before my wings gave out, find a new little place to make a territory and become completely hawk. Shut off my human mind for good so I wouldn't have to think about how much I missed Rachel, or how angry I was with Jake, or the number of horrific things I had witnessed and been through as an Animorph.  
  
It was Ax that brought me back though. Back from that brink. He asked if I wanted to go with him. To the Andalite home world.  
  
<You are Elfangor's son. You have a place with my people, if you want it.> He had given me a tentative little smile, like he was sure I was going to say no but really really wanted me to say yes.  
  
<Ax, your people can't even know about me. Even if we could tell them about Elfangor's time on Earth without disgracing his name, it's a pretty unbelievable story. The Ellimist? Nobody is going to believe that.> I was being dismissive. Not on purpose, but because I really couldn't handle dashed hope. Not again.  
  
<You are correct that it cannot become public knowledge.> He carefully began, a regretful tone in his voice. <But, as one of the heroes of the war, you would be welcome on the planet, and...> Here he did smile, a little more enthusiastically. <I have told my parents about you, and they do believe the story.>  
  
I felt a choke of emotion. I was glad I was in the body of a hawk at that moment, because I'm sure if I were human I would have started to tear up.  
  
<Your parents?> My heart was beating rapidly. His parents were my grandparents. Elfangor's parents. They were... family. <Your parents would take me in?>

<Yes, Tobias. They would very much like to meet you. You do not have to commit to living there if you do not want to, but they would be honoured if you would at least meet them.>  
  
I didn't know what to say. We hadn't always had the best experiences with Andalites. They could be arrogant, self important, and cruel. But my father was one of them, and Ax was both my uncle and my _shorm_. My best friend. Maybe it was time I got in touch with that heritage.  
  
<Can Loren come?> I asked about my mother. I don't know why I did; I didn't even know if she would want to. But it seemed right. Ax's parents were, in some ways, her in-laws. And I guess part of me just wanted to have all of my family in one place. You know, like how people get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, all of them under one roof. I'd never had that.

<Of course!> Ax was enthusiastic about it. <She is my brother's mate. I for one would be honoured to spend time with her, and I know that my parents will feel the same.>  
  
So it was decided. It was only for a visit, but space travel takes such a long time that for one reason after another, my mom and I just didn't end up leaving. The Andalite home world was beautiful, and Ax's parents were warm and friendly. They took us in, and wanted us to stay.  
  
Ax was still in the military. He'd been promoted to Prince, now, and had his own ship. So he wasn't around all of the time, a lot of his time spent in active duty. I was considered 'retired', and to be honest, I found Andalite civilian culture much less overbearing than the military culture that we had been in contact with during the war. I learned about their customs and their rituals from him and his parents. They had a house constructed for my mother next to their scoop, and she got along so well with the Andalites it was like she had experience. Maybe, even if she didn't have the memories, the instincts were still there from her time with Elfangor.  
  
So that's it... the end to my story. Not all that glamorous. I still live as a hawk, even though now that there's no war to fight I would be free to trap myself in human morph if I wanted. But to be honest, not wanting to give up the morphing ability so I could still fight the Yeerks was always a flimsy excuse at best. The reality is that I like being a hawk.  
  
But now I also spend more time in morph. I hang out with my mother in human morph, and with my grandparents in Andalite morph. It's Ax's body, and that feels right. His DNA is the closest thing I have to having something in me from my father, after all. I do the rituals, even though I don't always understand all of them, because it makes me feel a part of something in a way I never did as a human. They ground me, give me something to focus on... a better coping mechanism, I suppose.  
  
Sometimes I still feel bitter about the war. About Rachel, and about Jake. That doesn't just go away. But I don't hate him, anymore. I think I did for a while, but I've come to understand what he did. At least to be at peace with it. I don't feel the cold rage when I think about him now. Now, I just feel sad.  
  
I wonder sometimes if I should visit Earth. Cassie and Marco are still there too, and I wouldn't mind catching up with them. We do get news of Earth out here on the Andalite home world from time to time, so I know that Marco is a very popular celebrity and I know that Cassie is, well, still being Cassie. Helping whoever she can, however she can. I know that Jake spoke at Esplin 9466's trial. They did send word asking me to be there as well, but, at the time I couldn't face it. It was still too open of a wound.

I think I'd like to tell Jake that I don't hate him, sometime, though. I don't think our friendship will ever be what it was, and I will always disagree with what he did at the end. But soon, I think I'll have to mend the broken bridge to give both of us closure. I'll bring it up to Ax next time he stops in to visit.

That's the story of Tobias, the _nothlit_.  
  
What am I? I was born a human. I live in the body of a hawk. And my father was an Andalite. I guess that makes me a strange mix of three different things. Some days I feel like that mix is pretty even across the board. Some days I feel more like one over the others. Other days I feel like I will never be any of them at all, not really. But these days “what” is a less important question to me than “who”. I've learned that those identities, while important to me and meaningful, don't make me who I am.

And who I am is a war veteran trying to heal however he can. A kid who got in over his head way too young, a part of a group of kids who had the world on their shoulders. And a man who finally has a family that loves him.


	2. Marco

“Some days I still wake up and I can't move. You know? Like I've forgotten how. My body still thinks it needs that Yeerk to drive it. I spend around 20 minutes trying to remember what to do as I realize that there's no Yeerk there, that I can make myself move on my own. Those mornings always lead to rough days.”  
  
The man, some guy named Jerry, finished speaking. There was a choke in his voice as he described the nightmares, and the episodes that still plagued him, even three years later. The man sitting beside him patted him on the back, rubbing his shoulder gently in what I supposed was a soothing motion.  
  
I bit my tongue to stop myself from making some little quip. Not helpful, Marco, I told myself. Strange enough to say, but I've learned that some people don't actually cope with gallows humour. Yeah, I know. Weird, right? But this guy looked like if I made a joke right now, he'd probably break down crying, and that was the last thing I needed.   
  
See? I'm not completely heartless.

 _'Yeerk War Survivor Support Group'._ We all had our little fold-out chairs set up in a big circle in the middle of the room. Cassie had been the one to insist that I go to this thing. I think she gave Jake the same pamphlet, but I've never seen him come to a meeting. It was a group of people that met to vent their trauma from the Yeerk war, and it included ex-Controllers as well as military personnel who had fought with us at the end. People who's loved ones had been Controllers. People who's loved ones had died. And me! An Animorph.

I had promised Cassie I'd check it out but I hadn't really intended to go to more than one meeting. After all, I wasn't like Jake. I wasn't wallowing in grief over the damn war. I'd moved on! I was a fun celebrity, people liked me. I was successful. I didn't need help getting over this shit. Don't get me wrong, I am all for groups like this existing, I think they're important, I just didn't think I needed it personally.   
  
Well, turns out that when you cope with everything by laughing it off, sometimes that leads to shit getting buried. Whoops.  
  
The first meeting I went to had me bawling. I don't even really know how it happened. One minute I was listening to someone describing what it had been like to slowly loose their spouse over time, while their spouse became less and less themselves, and then the experience of that same spouse betraying them, dragging them down to the Yeerk pool kicking and screaming and then...  
  
I'd seen flashes of memories I usually try _really really_ hard not to think about. The Yeerk pool. The screaming people in the cages. The way some begged for freedom while others raged and still others were silent, zombie-like. I could smell the scent of Kandrona like I was back there again, underground, the walls closing in on me. And I remembered my mother. I remembered the feeling of not knowing if I would ever see her again, if she would ever be free again, not knowing if I could ever do anything to help her.   
  
I remembered having to try to kill her.  
  
I guess I had a breakdown. That's what the therapist said it was. He said it was good, too. Healthy. I'm a funny guy you know, I like to laugh and make other people laugh. I do _not,_ generally, cry. Apparently never crying isn't good for you. Who knew! This had been the first time I'd really let myself feel it, he said. It was okay. I was okay.  
  
Everyone in the group had rallied around me. They listened. They sympathized. They rubbed my back the way that Liam guy was rubbing Jerry's back now. So I guess I kept going because, okay, fair enough. Maybe I did need it. Or just... didn't hate it as much as I'd thought I would, anyways. Whatever.   
  
So I go to this thing now, and have been for a while. Months. It helps. Cassie checks up on me at regular intervals too, to see how I'm doing, and that helps as well.  
  
I went home from that meeting feeling that strange cathartic feeling you get after a meeting like that. It's a little raw, a little hallow, in your chest, but in a good way? Like you feel after crying. Like you'd gotten all the rot out and the rest of you just needed to close in now that that's gone. I was feeling introspective, which is a way that I used to avoid feeling on principle.   
  
As I got home, driving through the gates to my fancy mansion, walking through the front door, my assistant greeted me with a deferential nod. I put on a big smile, the kind that I use for public appearances where I have to really flash the charm. That mask made me feel safe around people I didn't know so well.   
  
“Marco, Sir, I hope you had a good outing.” She was professional as ever. A small, polite smile on her face. Sometimes I wished she was a little _less_ professional, always so primly dressed, and never even rose to my jokes or commented on my obvious attempts to flirt. What I wouldn't give for someone to verbally _spar_ with from time to time, rather than these polite and restrained disapproving looks. Why couldn't she be more like-

Nope. Don't think about Rachel. I shook my head. Better save that shit for next week's meetings.  
  
“I did, thanks Julie. Anything I should be aware of?” I asked just out of habit, I didn't really expect anything amiss. So I was a little stumped for what to do when she responded.  
  
“Actually, Sir, there _is_ something. The _United Earth Space Program_ has been trying to contact you. Still.” She very neatly detailed their messages, with emphasis on how long they had been trying to get in touch with me.  
  
“Well it's a great thing I have you to screen my calls for me!” I said with a smile and a dismissive wave. She pursed her lips as I tried to brush past her. There was no way I wanted to think about whatever the hell those guys wanted.  
  
But she blocked my passages purposefully, and gave me a well practised glower. “They will not be dissuaded, and if you don't respond to them I will personally set up an in-person meeting. I know I have left their lettings on your desk-”  
  
“Who even sends snail mail anymore anyways” I muttered with a roll of my eyes.  
  
“And I know it's not the glamorous Hollywood type job you would go for but at least give them a formal rejection if you aren't interested. Ignoring an international government military operation like this is not only a bad look, but it will reflect poorly on your public image as well. Talk to them.”  
  
She pushed the most recent letter into my hands before she stalked off. I sighed and opened the envelope as I made my way to the living room. I flopped onto the couch with an exaggerated huff and pulled out the letter.  
  
I knew what they wanted. There was a reason I'd been avoiding their calls. The _United Earth Space Program_ was a first attempt at a truly International military force. It was controversial for obvious reasons; it makes people nervous to think of a military force that doesn't belong to any one country. But it had been decided after months of debate and summit arguments that if humans were going to be interacting with extraterrestrial peoples, forging peace treaties and trades agreements with aliens, it wouldn't make sense for one country to have more sway than another.   
  
It was decided that Earth _had_ to have a united force for dealing with outer space matters. Many people were worried that this was the start of the destruction of countries, that borders and individual governments would become meaningless within a few generations. That we would no longer be American and British and Russian and Chinese and whatever else, that we'd all just be _Earthian_. Some people liked that idea, some people didn't. I didn't really care myself, to be honest.  
  
But they _really really_ wanted the Animorphs on the project. They wanted to recruit us for the military, essentially. Give us officer positions, make us the front leaders of their shiny new space army. Tobias was off-world now, Ax was with his own people's military, and Cassie had very firmly forged her little activism career.   
  
That left Jake and me. Jake I could see being good at it. There was a reason he was our leader, a reason I followed him. Me, I'd be good at it too. I knew that I was a pretty good tactician. If I was that good as a kid, imagine how brilliant I could be as an experienced adult, right? Might even me nice to get out into space and interact with aliens again, work that brain of mine.   
  
Except I really _liked_ being a celebrity, I really liked my cushy mansion and all the fame and the paparazzi and the events. I lived for that shit. But Julie was right, there was no reason not to just give them a formal rejection. So why hadn't I?  
  
I read their stupid letter over and over. The more I read it the more I really liked the idea of going, and that was probably why I'd been avoiding their dumb messages in the first place. I knew that I liked it too much. Not like Rachel had, not in that bloodthirsty kind of way, but I really had enjoyed the strategizing and the routine of it all. I could be a damn good General if I wanted to, and they wanted me to.   
  
Cassie had given up a life of fame and money to help work on the worlds transition into being a space faring planet that engaged with aliens. I didn't want to do the same... did I?  
  
I looked around the room at my perfect environment. The mini bar, the little beer fridge, the soda stream installed beside the water dispenser. The giant screen TV and all the video game consoles, with a full library of DVDs at my disposal. Somewhere in that collection was an Animorphs movie, where I'd been cast by some well known actor that wasn't, to my annoyance, quite as hot as the actor they'd cast for Jake.   
  
I had to admit to myself that while the life I'd been living for the last three years was really luxurious, and everything that kid-me had ever wanted, it was... well, kind of boring.

“If I take this job, I'll probably get to work with Ax from time to time.” I said out loud, feeling a little nostalgic.  
  
Maybe I would. Maybe I would say yes.


	3. Cassie

I don't know when I started feeling 'normal' again. I'm not sure if I ever really did, or if I got used enough to all the changes to the point where the concept of normal just became something different. That's the funny thing about life. It keeps going. It keeps going even after everything's changed. Even after _you've_ changed. And it finds new normals.

Do I still miss Rachel? Every damn day. But I know that Rachel would want me to keep going. So that's what I do.  
  
I work with the Hork-Bajir very closely. With all the aliens, actually. The cool down from the war was more complicated than you'd think, and involved a lot more paperwork and bureaucracy than anyone ever expects. Here's the cliffnotes version:  
  
Earth formed a peace treaty with the Andalites. It was tense, and difficult, because first it involved convincing the Andalites to take us seriously as a new, baby race that was only just starting to get space faring capabilities, only just beginning to play in the big leagues. But we stood our ground, and the Andalites agreed to form a treaty with us. It didn't involve much trade, they are still as secretive as ever about their technology, and they made us give back any scrap of Andalite tech that had made it to our planet- yes, even the toilet.

But we had jurisdiction of any and all Yeerk technology recovered, which caused a major technological revolution. Suddenly our little planet had more knowledge and technology than we'd dreamed of. Marco's dad played a big role in helping to develop it and integrate it into human technology, and soon we had our own spaceships in development. So we were now officially on good political terms with the Andalites, providing we didn't push our luck too far.   
  
The Hork-Bajir were getting well integrated on our planet as well. Most of them opted to stay and live in the areas that had been set aside for them, and that all required a lot of formal talks on treaties and land rights. I was the head of the committee that fought for more lands and for Earth citizenship rights for the Hork-Bajir, and though we haven't made as much progress as I would like, we've made a lot of strides in the right direction. There's always more work to be done.  
  
The Taxxons mostly all either opted to become _nothlits_ , or to claim safe passage back to the Taxxon home world. With the exception of Arbron, who ended up the last remaining Taxxon on Earth. Arbron ended up working fairly closely with me in negotiations with the Andalites, and gave me a lot of political coaching on how to deal with them.  
  
The Yeerks were the most complicated situation, however. The Yeerk Peace Movement was working closely with us, and we ended up creating treaties with them as well. The Council of Thirteen was on the run, and Esplin 9466 was imprisoned for life. That left the Yeerk Peace Movement group to take over as the leadership of Yeerk society, and with them we signed peace and trade treaties. (Trades which, I will say, were much more generous on their ends than the Andalites.) It was a very strained peace, of course, and humans had a long way to go towards being 'friendly' with them, but on paper we were formally no longer enemies.

Many, many Yeerks opted to become _nothlits_ like the Taxxons did. A lot of others agreed to live out their lives in the Yeerk pools, never again taking hosts. A lot of the Yeerk Peace Movement Yeerks actually acquired their own hosts, who had become friends and partners of them and didn't want to be separated from them. These human and Yeerk couples, pairings, were looked at with distrust by a lot of people, and my hands were full dealing with publicity campaigns to help assuage the general ill feelings.   
  
I was up to my ears in protesters demanding that Yeeks-turned-humans be exiled from our planet, and with accusations of treason towards the humans that lived with them. I managed as best as I could juggling all of these complicated subjects. I became looked to as an authority on how humanity should interact with the extraterrestrial. People came to me for opinions, advice. I did what I could, though it always felt like it wasn't quite enough.  
  
I'm in therapy, as well. I try not to run away from the memories, from the guilt and the pain and horrors and the loss. I try not to run away from seeing Rachel everywhere I go, in the ad for professional women's wrestling at the mall (something like that might have been Rachel's calling if the war hadn't happened) or the fashion labels that beg me to sponsor their brands (Rachel is the one you want for that, god wouldn't she be jealous) or the quiet moments when I think how nice it might be to kick back and watch a movie with my best friend.   
  
Sometimes I fail, and I do run away. Internally, I brush the memory of her away, and I try not to think about the war or the consequences of the war or the things that I was party to during the war. I bury myself in work, maybe as an attempt to fix the mistakes I made, the mistakes that Jake made. I tell myself that maybe if I can get this law to pass, or get that treaty signed, that it will make up for all the evil we went through.   
  
None of it will though, and I know it. I have to work for a better future, not to redeem myself for past mistakes. That's what my therapist tells me. And she's right. It's been helping. I sent Marco and Jake information for a therapy group nearer to them, too. I got on both of their asses about going, because I know how heavy all of this is, and Jake especially hasn't been dealing well. I worry about him.  
  
Marco did start going though and I'm proud of him.   
  
I wonder sometimes if I should try to rebuild my relationship with Jake. You know, him and me. See if it could work. We said, right before all of this ended, that we'd give it a year. It's been three, now. Three years. Maybe we could try.  
  
I'm seeing someone. He's a good guy, and I can see a future for us. He shares my values, my ideas and wants the same things I do, long term. It's a no-brainer, really. But I miss Jake. Jake was strong when I didn't feel strong, and sometimes that scared me and sometimes that felt like he was letting me down, but I needed it, mistakes and all. Because, at the end of the day, if Jake hadn't made those mistakes, one of us would have. Jake shouldered our guilt for us, and it terrifies me that he might be still carrying that.  
  
I think I will reach out to him soon. See what could happen. Start with rebuilding a friendship, and see if anything grows from there. He deserves that much, at least.


	4. Jake

It was three years ago to the day that Rachel died and the war ended. I stood overlooking the memorial stone. I wished, not for the first time, that I could cry, but my eyes remained dry. I felt that hollow in the middle of my chest that I feel when I come here. And I come here often.   
  
My eyes slid over her stone to the ones beside hers. There were names on each. Names of the military personnel that had fought with us in that last battle. Names of the other Animorphs kids that had followed us under James. There was a section for the names of every free Hork-Bajir we had lost in the war, and my eyes lingered over the name Jara Hamee. Then I turned back to Rachels' plaque, and startled a little.  
  
There was a man standing there, who looked strangely familiar. I frowned as he placed a bundle of flowers carefully next to the others that were already collected there. He seemed to be avoiding looking at me. Eventually I clued in. I knew where I recognized him from. He was older now, or at least he had altered his appearance to appear so.   
  
“Hi, Erek.” I said with a sad smile. He paused for a second, then straightened up to look at me.

“Jake.” He nodded. “It's been a while.”  
  
“Thee years.” I agreed. There wasn't much I could think to say to him. I still felt a twinge of dislike looking at him, even now. The Chee had, ultimately, not been much of a help to us in those final days, and Erek had actively sabotaged our efforts. I don't think I will ever forgive him for that, but to be fair, I had done a lot of unforgivable things myself as well. Tit for tat, I suppose. If I expected people not to hold me accountable for messy decisions made during a war, I had to extend the same courtesy. Still, though, I wouldn't ever like the guy.

“You've been... well, I hope.” He offered me a smile. I laughed a little, dryly. He knew that I hadn't, I was sure.  
  
“Sure. Thanks for leaving the flowers. I'm sure she'd appreciate it.”   
  
He nodded, and then he left. I hoped, somewhere deep down, that I wouldn't ever run into him again. I made my way back home. I had some class curriculum to prepare for the next day, some final touches on a lecture on morphing. The _United Earth Space Program_ military had been on my ass for a while now to join, to become a leader in their efforts, but I had respectfully declined. “I just want to be retired,” I'd told them. They'd roped me into at the very least teaching, helping to pass on my experience and expertise to new recruits. I told them “fine.”  
  
I had to do something, after all.  
  
When I drove up to my house, a blue figure was standing in the yard, watering the garden. He looked up as I got out of the car. Waved. I waved back as I approached the combination enclosed building plus scoop that had been custom built for us after the war. Andalites don't really like being inside much after all, especially if they aren't in human morph.  
  
And Alloran rarely wanted to morph, these days. Not even to eat human food, which was shocking for an Andalite. We did have acres of space for him to run through in behind the house though, with all sorts of different species of grass planted in various portions for him to feed.  
  
<How was it?> He asked me in thought speech as I came up. He smiled in that way that Andalite's smile, with just their eyes crinkling at the edges.  
  
“It was fine.” I said with a shrug. “Beautiful day out. A lot of people had left memorial gifts. Flowers, stuffed animals, that kind of thing. Someone left a whole, unopened bottle of Jack Daniels, which is ironic because she didn't even live to be old enough to drink.” I joked a bit, smiling a little at the thought of Rachel being given whisky of all things.  
  
If she had lived that long, she probably would have been a whisky girl, to be honest.  
  
A tear came to my eye. I awkwardly wiped it away as I started moving towards the door to the enclosed portion of the house. Alloran followed me. He was frowning now.  
  
<Jake.> He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. I met his eyes. All four of them.  
  
“Sorry,” I mumbled, “It's just... this time of year, you know? I remember it all. It all comes back to me. Rachel, and Tom. The Yeerk pool. The things I did, the things I didn't do.” I sighed and forced a smile back on to my face. “I'll be alright, I just need some time.”  
  
Alloran nodded. <I understand. I am an Andalite living in exile for decisions that shamed me perhaps even more than yours have shamed you. I am here.> And then he did a very un-Andalite thing; he pulled me in close to him for a hug.   
  
Hugging wasn't really Andalite custom, it was human. But Alloran had been living on Earth since the end of the war, and had picked up on a lot of human traditions. As I felt the warmth of his body and the tightening of his arms around me, I returned the gesture, and thought of when he had first offered our strange living situation.  
  
<I cannot return to the Andalite home world,> he had said, then. <I am disgraced twice over. There is nothing there for me now. Would... I know that it is not perhaps my place to ask, and if the answer is no then I will put myself in exile in space, and wander as a nomad. But would the people of Earth perhaps consent to allow me to remain here, as a permanent resident?>  
  
I had needed someone around to ground me. So had Alloran. He was much older than me, much more experienced in war. But we were both vets that had been leaders who had made terrible calls. Calls that we regretted deeply, calls that wracked us with guilt and shame. I couldn't live with my parents any longer, even though they insisted that they wanted me around. I needed someone who understood me.   
  
And Alloran needed someone who understood him. He had almost wiped out the entire Hork-Bajir race in order to destroy the Yeerks. And I was the human that had flushed a Yeerk pool and sent my cousin to her death to kill my brother. Neither of us was proud of the things we had done, and that was why we managed to forge such a successful peace together.  
  
We didn't talk about our experiences much at first. It was a silent companionship as we both worked through our shit internally. Sometimes that's still our go-to method. That's why Cassie and Marco are so on me about signing up for therapy. There are groups out there now specializing in survivors of the Yeerk war, after all. But nobody that would know we as well as Alloran.  
  
Sometimes I look at him and all I can see is Visser Three. And some nights I bust out a bottle of vodka, and we do talk. We've railed and raged and cried together in the late hours of the night. Anything past midnight doesn't count, after all. It's like Vegas. What happens there stays there. It isn't a part of reality.   
  
I'm slowly coming around. So is he. Who would have thought that I'd be living with the host of my most hated enemy now? And a man decades older and wiser and more broken than I am. I guess that's why it works.   
  
War is ugly and messy and I got pretty ugly and messy while participating in it. But I'm doing okay. Some days are worse than others, but whoever said the road to healing was going to be any prettier than the road to rock bottom? It's still the same road, but at least I'm headed in the right direction.


	5. Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil

I believe this is the part of the story where one delivers a “wrap up”. I have seen many Earth television programs where this is the case. Where the screen shows us the characters and gives us a point form explanation of all the things that happen to them after the story is over, or the characters themselves narrate these developments.   
  
I shall attempt to do the later.  
  
I am now a Prince, and well on my way to becoming a War-Prince. It has been three years since the end of the Yeerk war which had devastated my people for so long. My experiences in that war were taxing, and gave me much to think about. Things such as, what is right and wrong? Is loyalty to one's own people at all costs really the best mantra to live by? Are Andalites truly the most superior race in the Galaxy, as I had been taught? And are Cinnamon Buns better with, or without raisins?  
  
That last bit there was a joke. I have gotten much better at formulating them. It is not a very Andalite trait, but I now consider humans to be my adoptive people as well.   
  
I have gotten word recently that Marco will be joining Earth's united military force, and that our military may be having dealings with them quite soon. I hope that when we meet, he will be proud of my improvements in humor.   
  
At first when I was promoted from _aristh_ to Prince, I must admit that I had some misgivings about accepting the title and the position. I had seen a lot of poor behaviours and actions from the Andalite military. When I had joined I was only a child, but now I knew better than to believe everything I had been told at face value. Yes, it was possible for Andalites to be traitors. Yes, it was possible for Andalites to be cruel, ruthless and evil. And yes, as my human friends pointed out so often, Andalites could be arrogant.

Humans are also not so perfect, of course. I had seen so much evil from them, alongside so much good. As a race they perplexed me because they seemed so contradictory. But this did not bother me nearly as deeply as discovering evil within the Andalite race, because that should not, according to what I had been taught, be possible. And yet it was. And that horrified me enough to, I am ashamed to say, make my question my loyalty to them.  
  
I had also seen Yeerks that had done good things, that fought for peace. One of them had saved my life once. This was undeniable. And then came the Taxxons that also wanted nothing more than peace, and an end to relentless war and hunger.   
  
There were good humans, and bad humans. Good Yeerks, and bad Yeerks. And though I had yet to meet any Hork-Bajir that might satisfy my notion of a “bad” Hork-Bajir, the pattern would suggest that that, too, was possible. So if there were both good and bad of other races, why should I be so surprised to find that Andalites were no different?  
  
Because we were _supposed_ to be different? We were supposed to be better?  
  
We couldn't become better if every one of us that saw the true corruption left. So in the end, I took up the position of Prince, and decided to be better. I decided to strive for what was right, to make a difference within Andalite society. My people were not perfect, but nor were any other people. It was not a reason to leave them, or desert my loyalty to them.

I looked over the bridge of my ship, at the Andalites that were under my command. They were good Andalites, all of them. They regarded me as a hero, someone to look up to and aspire to be like. It was difficult to imagine myself as the hero they saw me as. Much of the time, I still felt like the scared _aristh_ trapped under the ocean in a Dome on Earth. But they needed me to lead them, and I had learned from Prince Jake to give them the projection of strength.

<Prince Aximili, there is a ship reading on our sensors. It is behind a large asteroid, and it is blinking in and our on our scanner, almost as though a cloaking device is attempting to stay on but is suffering damage.>  
  
I frowned as I looked at the sensor screen with my main eyes, my other two eyes turning towards the main windows of the bridge which showed the vast expanse of space. <Take us around. I want to know what that ship is.>  
  
A feeling I could almost not describe was bubbling up within me. It wasn't quite excitement, or fear. Anticipation, perhaps. We had been searching for three years through deep space, looking for the escaped Blade Ship, the one last remaining remnant of the Yeerk forces. That was the ship that Prince Jake's brother Tom had commandeered... and it was there, on that ship, that our fellow Animorph warrior Rachel had died.   
  
The possibility of it being the ship I was looking for conjured up many different emotions all at once. Outwardly I remained calm and stoic. But internally, my hearts were racing.   
  
We pulled around the asteroid, and the ship came into view. My hearts were pounding, each beating a conflicted rhythm as it revealed itself.   
  
It was, indeed, the Blade Ship.  
  
<Are we cloaked?> I asked the navigations officer, who gave affirmation.  
  
<Yes, Prince Aximili. They do not know we are here.>   
  
<Then keep us hidden. Do not hail them. I want to take them by surprise. Charge up the shredder beams.>  
  
As this was being done, however, a sudden flash filled the view screen, and the ship was gone. <My Prince! They've made the jump to Z-Space!>  
  
My eyes narrowed. No, this could not be! I was so close... so close to finishing the mission, and ridding the Galaxy of the last remains of the Yeerk Empire. I clenched my fists and took a deep breath before I gave my command.  
  
<Track the signature. We're following them.>

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I hope you enjoy my alternate wrap-up.  
> I live for your feedback so please consider commenting if you read this! Also, please feel free to come hit me up on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FirstOrderPixie


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